


The King is Dead

by Ailette



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Imported, this is the eleventh Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 03:51:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2214735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ailette/pseuds/Ailette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Eleventh Doctor is enjoying life again when he is suddenly reminded of why his last self didn't want to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The King is Dead

Life was fun again. Well, it became a lot more fun after he crash-landed, survived and consequently managed to repair his TARDIS. Which, coincidentally, involved a lot of running around inside of it. Who could’ve known that Speaoran rats had decided to start a new civilisation in his room for spare parts (only to be used when the TARDIS’ template was completely destroyed)? And those beasts grew _large_. For a second he’d worried that maybe in this regeneration he was only about a metre tall – practically everything was possible with repressed atron energy - and how would people take him seriously ever again if he was some half-pint with girly hair? Why had he taken so long to get back here anyway? The Doctor shrugged. Not that it mattered anymore, now. He’d looked into a mirror not too long afterwards. A full-length mirror.

Gleefully admiring his new console room, he set the coordinates to random ( _not_ because he was in any way worried that she might react badly to specific coordinates, of course not!) and rubbed his hands. Oooh, he was going to enjoy this.

And he did. Loads and loads more  running, another hand in his as he sprinted down another street somewhere - it never really mattered anymore where they ended up – and nearly collapsing with laughter onto the TARDIS’ floor when they finally reached their safe haven. Of course, there needed to be calm days as well, so one day Amy all but blackmailed him into shopping on Earth and didn’t he know a good place and time for that? He wasn’t quite sure how she had managed to convince him that it would be fair when she paid for her own things and in exchange (for what?) used him as a drone; pressing more and more shopping bags onto his person until he finally lost sight of her in the crowd of bargain hunters around them.

Feeling mildly bemused and just a little bit abandoned (though he wouldn’t admit to that), he stood still for a few moments; carefully not dropping any of the bags as he scanned the crowd for his companion. She’d have him for breakfast should anything happen to her precious new purchases and he quite liked this body, thank you very much. And, yeeees, there she was. Flaming red hair easily discernible as she loomed over a cart filled to the top with shoes. Earth women. Weirdly predictable when it came to certain topics slash items.

“Found you,” he announced cheerily as he came to stand beside her with a little spring in his step. People were giving him odd looks anyway, so who cared if he crossed a shopping mall hopping from one foot to the other?

Sadly, Amy’s reaction was all the more low-key.

“Ah, I thought I’d lost something,” she admitted airily and – to his utter indignation – looked pointedly at her shopping bags. It must have shown on his face, too, since she started laughing and patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. “Sorry. I kind of got caught up chatting with Donna here.”

The name made him freeze up. The whole universe seemed to narrow down to a tiny and insignificant thing right in front of him, blocking everything else from view. All he could look at and focus on was Amy’s hair, thinking, ‘ _It’s not the same shade,_ ’ over and over again. The thought echoed inside his head, making him wonder.

Every single passing heartbeat registered gravely before he could finally shift his gaze and take in the other red head standing opposite Amy. His eyes widened in a way he knew to look unfavourably comical on this face but he couldn’t even spare more than half a second to that thought because, all of a sudden, he remembered. Knew exactly why his last self just didn’t want to go. _Not yet, just a little more time, please…_

Whenever he changed, he forgot. Forgot all about _them_ – and they were so, so important. Everyone who wasn’t with him when it happened faded into oblivion over the stress and chaos of being someone else again. It would never even occur to him to look them up again; why should he? There were others out there. Others who were only waiting to meet him; already tying their shoelaces for the races to come.

He’d properly become aware of this for the first time in his last self. With Sarah Jane suddenly stepping into his life again after oh so many years – and then he had forgotten all over again. Being almost a millennium old; he still never really learned.

The almost sarcastic clearing of Donna’s throat brought him back to the here and now and he found himself staring at her even as she commented matter-of-factly to Amy that he was a bit of a slow one, eh? A sheepish grin formed on his face where his last self would have been close to tears.

A death meant forgetting, but a new life meant new chances.

“Hello,” he finally managed and held out his hand, dropping a dozen shopping bags in the process. “I’m the Doctor.”

 

And it was comforting to know that some things just never would change, when three hours, 42 minutes and 16 seconds later, Donna Noble slapped him.

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally posted at http://ailette.livejournal.com/51700.html)  
> Beta: Thanks again to fififolle, for looking this over even though it isn't Primeval :D  
> Warnings: Casting spoilers for the S5 companion (if you know the name, you're fine)


End file.
